Skinny Love
by wouldtheywriteasongforyou
Summary: "I loved you with all I could in the hopes that you would stop yourself from withering away into nothing." Inspired by the Taylor Swift song (Invisible) and the Birdy cover of Bon Iver's (Skinny Love). AU, perhaps, but this tragedy is real.


**Author's Note:  
****Disclaimer: Shoot for the moon; even if you miss, you'll land amongst the stars.**

Inspired by: Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games), Taylor Swift (Invisible), and Birdy (cover of Skinny Love originally by Bon Iver). Entry for the "Starvation" January 2014 contest.

**We wore our hearts on grass-stained sleeves and you clasped a necklace of rope around my neck.**

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**Skinny Love**

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You swore you weren't a romantic but if I looked closely enough I could see fireworks blooming in your nightingale eyes. When you blinked, the world shifted and realigned itself so fast that it took me a few times to get used to the sensation of having my skeletal puzzle pieces rearranged every time I caught your midnight gaze. Poetry was tattooed onto your soul, and magic was etched into your veins. You spoke in riddles and rhymes and sarcasm and lies. You were a charmer in the most sinful of ways, and if that wasn't romance then what was?

Once, you told me you were incapable of love. You said that you were broken beyond repair and that I shouldn't waste my time or love trying to fix you. But I couldn't stop. I had to fill the gaps in between your bones with promises and smiles. I couldn't bear to just stand by and let you starve yourself from emotion. So I loved you. I loved you with all I could in the hopes that you would stop yourself from withering away into nothing. I loved you with all I had, and then some.

And suddenly, sunsets were painting themselves across the hollows and caverns of your cheeks. Blushing pinks and scarlet reds and golden yellows blossomed all over you in a healthy rosy glow. You accepted the peace offering I proffered in a bread basket, wrapped up tight in a cinnamon-and-flour blanket. Confidence and pride made you stumble through your thanks and acceptance of the gift I gave you, and suddenly you were feeling emotions again. I watched you leave in the pouring rain, hunched over the basket as if it was an oyster and what it contained inside was a precious pearl.

I wondered if you realised that besides the bread, I had metaphorically given you my heart as well that day.

The next day I showed up late to school bruised and battered with blue-and-blacks splattered across my canvas of skin. Your eyes were filled with horror when you caught sight of me. And then you blinked, and my heartbeat altered its pulse to echo the rhythm of your eyelashes. Everyone else in the classroom acted indifferent to the exposure of my scars and ignored me as usual, yet you went up to the teacher and begged to take me to the school nurse. _What for_, the teacher questioned. _He's hurt. Please. Let me take him to the nurse_, you pleaded. The teacher sent you back to your desk for interrupting class. I was chastised for my tardiness: a hundred lines after class. And then I was invisible again to everyone's eyes for the rest of the day.

You sat with me at lunch underneath the hanging tree. We wore our hearts on grass-stained sleeves and you clasped a necklace of rope around my neck. You told me your secrets and I shared with you my promises. Responsibility weighed you down and suffocated your every breath; I told you to run so you could be free. You laughed and pointed at your own necklace of rope wrapped around your throat. _I can't leave_, you said. _The knot's too tight_. Then you asked me about my fears and my dreams. _What do you want to do most?_ I told you that I wanted to escape and fly. You smiled in what I thought was understanding, and in that moment I knew I was right to give my heart to you.

He stole you away in the middle of the night to the pitch black caves of his life. You went willingly, blindly, and held his hand the entire time. He was real and tangible and you felt safe with him. If your heart was a compass, it would always point in his direction. If your mind was a weather vane, he would be the gale of wind dizzying your voice of reason. If you were you, and he was he, and I was me, you'd always pick him to be your first choice.

It was all understandable, really.

I was simply a poet of a romantic with candles in my mockingjay eyes. Words were trapped in the spaces between my ribs and stuck in the vibrations of my vocal chords. Wishing for freedom beyond these barbed wire fences fuelled my thoughts and actions, but you wanted nothing of that. You lived day by day in the present while I was always stuck in the future. Our paths never seemed to cross after that.

There were whispers around the district that after the novelty of your love with him faded away only the scars remained. He pressured you, trying to turn your coal black eyes into glittering diamonds. All he managed was crystallised rhinestone tears. You were brave and strong and presented yourself as someone different from that skinny bird pecking for bread at my front porch years ago. I knew you would want to get through this mess by yourself – you were Katniss Everdeen, the girl with fire in her soul and who refused to be classified as a romantic. She would never be caught waiting for Prince Charming to come riding in on a white horse to save the day.

I was foolish and in love. For as long as I could remember, I had knit myself together as a body of skin and bone with the purpose of being your behind-the-curtains hero. I was a mess of a dreamer who had the nerve to adore you. Without that purpose guiding me, I had no idea who to be without you around. There was only one way I knew to escape all of this: this being the heartbreak, the rejection, all the love wasted. So I went to the hanging tree, late at midnight. I climbed the stairway to heaven and made sure the necklace of rope was around me still to keep me from touching the ground ever again. I told my love to wreck it all, to cut out all the ropes and let me fall. I closed my eyes, envisioned the galaxies bursting wide open with stars, and let myself fly for the first and last time.

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**Author's Note: **All the love in the world wasn't enough for you and it won't bring you back to me. xoxo Safari


End file.
